Ready to come out of the woods: Hillary Clinton

"Our country seems so divided right now. I do not believe that we can let political divides harden into personal divides," Clinton said on Friday in her keynote address to the Society of Irish Women's 19th annual St Patrick's Day Dinner.

"And we can't just ignore, or turn a cold shoulder to someone because they disagree with us politically," Clinton said in her few public appearances after her defeat to Trump in the presidential elections.

In an apparent reference to the current political climate, the 69-year-old former Secretary of State said that it is difficult to watch news these days.

"I'm like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news," she said.

"I am ready to come out of the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around kitchen tables, at dinners like this, to help draw strength that will enable everybody to keep going," Clinton said in her key note address in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the home town of her father.

After her November defeat, Clinton has rarely made public appearances.

Media reports said she is expected to come out in public quite often in the next few months.

"What can we do to try to bring people together and to try to find that common ground, even higher ground, sister, so that we listen to each other again and we know that we can make a difference? I'm not sure it will come out of Washington yet, but I think it can come out of Scranton.

Let's find ways to do that," she said.